Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Mourning the Loss of the Berber Troubadour Idir

Working-class people don't need to "break into the elite" A critique of BBC2 broadcast (I find it funny, but telling that the BBC classified this topic in Entertainment and Arts section) Yes, it is about social structure. Nathalie Olah in her critique advocates social justice instead of social mobility. But could "social justice" be achieved within the existing capitalist socio-economic relations?

At the end of the academic year at an elite institution, One student studying Development does not know where inequality comes from. Nor is she provided in the course with an alternative to what she called "dependency" of the underdeveloped countries or the Gates Foundation work. A student burst in laughter upon hearing "social justice" in a sentence. Then she said: it is impossible to have social justice. A student from France voted for Emmanuel Macron, and still supports him, because he hoped that he would legalise marijuana. A student from another elite college came to class full of excitment after she attended a lecture by the King of Spain. She confidently said that the King "was giving them tools to change the world."

This piece suffers from some problems, in particular the narrow bourgeois definition of democracy in regards to the "Tunisian exception", but it is worth a read, especially the first part of it that deals with the historical background. Failed dream of political Islam 

Radical Arab Nationalism and Political Islam

Morocco Justice and/or Development

Germany "The AfD is not classically fascist – and does not need to be. Hitler needed his stormtroopers to take on and defeat the most organised labour movement, and biggest communist party, in Europe – and he did so amid double-digit unemployment. But to construct the essential alliance between the “elite and the mob” –  as Hannah Arendt described it  – the AfD just needs to go on normalising hate-speech, recruiting well-heeled people from business and the military, and disrupting the status quo."

Criminal and barbaric, but we have accepted it and we keep cheering How long would it take you to earn a star player's salary?

"The coming together of Qatar, Iran and Turkey against Saudi Arabia and its allies, showed that coalitions now forming to compete with each other are not strictly based on the Shi’a-Sunni divide.  The alliances currently confronting each other are fighting over the control of the region, its capital,  and aim  to repress any movements for social justice." The threat of wider wars in the Middle East